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Authentic
by Deirdre Maultsaid
Don't you remember
it was at the Courtenay Fair where I bought my wallet in the first
place? It was rough leather, sewn together with jute, by hand. I
laughed when you thanked me for being your inspiration as you sold
every copy of your poetry chapbook, "Musings and Enchantments of
the Everyday" off the corner of a patchouli stand. We listened to
a local group do a cover of "Are you going to Scarborough Fair?"
and you kissed my throat above my white lace dress.
Don't you remember
when I came home that night after I cut my thumb at the restaurant
and we huddled in front of the space heater and then we ran to bed
quick where you kissed my finger, and other parts, and I told you
that at the hospital, the restaurant manager had held my "hippie"
wallet away from himself as if it were poisonous? What I had in
my wallet then: ten dollars, a health insurance card, a driver's
license and a little note of apology you had written to me. It said:
"The world makes a test of every shadow. Because of love, I will
pass through and carve a life out of blinding white light. I know
I will find you there, waiting to take shape."
Don't you remember
the day my wallet (my whole purse) was stolen when we were at that
beach cove at Zahara de Los Atunes on the Spanish Atlantic where
you had been doing research for your experimental Canada-Council
funded travelogue: "Andalucia: Musings and Memories of Conquest"?
We had left the car to play volley ball with the kids and they tolerated
me--"Good spike, Mom"--even though they are both on that co-ed varsity
team.
Don't you remember
I sat on the sand and cried in frustration at the stolen wallet:
credit cards, bank cards, health insurance, airline point cards,
photos of the kids, receipts, business cards, a gym membership.
I also cried in sorrow for that beautiful wallet which had endured
for 25 years. Back then, using a handicraft made by a cottage industry
was a political statement about a natural and authentic country
life, wasn't it? Devon knelt on the sand and teased me, "Mom, were
you really a hippie? Where's your stuff? We could wear it to a costume
party!"
Don't you remember
it wasn't until after the rigamarole with the police and car insurance
and a cold drink at the hotel that I had the courage to tell you
that in the bottom of my stolen purse had been three rolls of your
undeveloped film and a cassette from your hand-held recorder that
I still hadn't transcribed?
Don't you remember
that while Devon and Avalon exclaimed over the smashed car windows,
the first thing you said to me, when you realized we had been robbed,
the first question you asked, staring right at me with your eyes
ablaze, "Was there anything of mine in your purse?"
Deirdre
Maultsaid writes: "I am a Canadian writer living in Spain with
my family, where I am revising my novel "The Cold Ashes of Her Shelter"
for which I am seeking a book publisher. I have been published in
print in Other Voices and Zygote (Canada),a Rowan Books anthology
"Study in Grey" (Canada) and on the Internet at:
THIS WORK IS COPYRIGHT OF THE AUTHOR.
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